Thread: Sweet Gum Balls

I agree with the masses......................cut these trees down if possible. Other than the fact that they are soft wooded trees, they are quick to establish and offer liberal shade and unwanted siblings twice to three times a year......!
Their isn't much you can do to eliminate the fruit, all you do is control them!!

I too had several of these awful trees. I have two Golden Retrievers who constantly run around the yard and the gumballs were always getting stuck in their paws. I called an Arborist about how I could control them and he suggested that cutting the trees down was the only effective method. I hate killing healthy trees but i also hated seeing my dogs limping around everytime they went into the backyard so I had them cut down.

Then last year i noticed that my neighbor's gumball tree was growing over my fence and causing the same problem. i asked him if he minded having the limbs pruned and that I would gladly cover his expenses. He did one better - he had all of his cut down too.

I picked up a customer this summer that has at least 6 monster sweet gums around the house. The yard was no problem until the last month...More burr balls than I've ever seen. Today I filled 3 contractor bags and that was just what was in the lawn. Tons more in the beds, but I can't spend all day at one house. I'm going to have to call to discuss additional charges. :Angry

Yes they are foliar only I believe....not sure about bark banding.
Embark may be foliar also. I believe Mastiff and Snipper are injection. For injection you may be looking at 150 to 250.00 for large trees. Your timing must be perfect. I have never treated sweet gums so I cant help with more details. I can say that I am somewhat a fan of sweet gums.

Yes they are foliar only I believe....not sure about bark banding.
Embark may be foliar also. I believe Mastiff and Snipper are injection. For injection you may be looking at 150 to 250.00 for large trees. Your timing must be perfect. I have never treated sweet gums so I cant help with more details. I can say that I am somewhat a fan of sweet gums.

It's not a bad looking tree, it's the litter. I slip on them, they get stuck in the belt pulleys, and make a huge mess to clean-up.

I looked at spraying PGR's on sweet gum's 20 year's ago. To get any control of the gumball's the tree's had to be sprayed completely (foliar) every 30 day's, that just wasn't going to happen. I will say they have a good fall color, but that is their only redeeming quality. Otherwise ...http://www.google.com/imgres?q=chain...,r:2,s:0,i:156